"Building a house is littering.” This is the thought my seven-year-old son recently shared as we tended our vegetable garden in the late-spring sun. His reasoning went like this: if throwing a gum wrapper out of the window is considered a minor assault on the environment, constructing a relatively massive edifice in a natural setting is littering on an epic scale. This peek into his evolving conception of humanity’s role in the environment came as I found myself struggling with similar quandaries and trying to reduce my footprint in a world that seems overburdened by human activity.
At The Scientist, we’ve covered the science behind many pressing environmental issues over the years: from the effects of climate change and pharmaceutical pollution to the decimation of biodiversity and the crisis of plastic contamination in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It’s this last topic that has really had me thinking lately.
As relayed ...
